C.E. Murphy - Heart of Stone

A little shiver ran over her. All this. What was all this that she wanted escape from? She had the life she’d built, one deliberate step after another. A good school, a successful career, a relationship that looked as if it might be deciding on a sensible adult path. There was nothing to escape. There was no place for a stony-skinned…

Margrit found herself hesitating over the word monster. She’d met monsters, men whose humanity was far more removed than Alban’s seemed to be. Creature, perhaps, or being. Being lacked the pejorative implications the other words carried. There was no place for an extraordinary being like Alban in the ordered life she’d built.

She’d decided that herself, by refusing to help him. Despite his size and strength, his obviously inhuman capabilities, he’d let her go. He hadn’t stopped her with a word, as he might have. Margrit lifted her eyes to the buildings around her own, searching the shadows. Didn’t he know he might have stopped her with a word? With her name? It was how it worked in the stories. She walks away and he stops her with a single desperate plea, her name. It was classic.

And it was the stuff of films and storybooks. In the real world, men didn’t stop a woman with the utterance of one word, no more than a matter could be settled by an angry John Wayne kiss. By all rights, Alban’s behavior had been gentlemanly, no untoward pressure or embarrassing displays. That was the end of it. Margrit shook her head and turned away from the street, jogging into her building and up to her apartment.

“What’s wrong with your cell phone?” Cole called as she came in the door. “I needed cinnamon, too, but I couldn’t get ahold of you.”

She padded to the kitchen. “What?”

“What?” Cole blinked over his shoulder at her. “Oh, Grit. I thought you were Cam.”

“Not unless she’s really been working on her tan.” Margrit came to peer around his arm at the stove. “What’s for dinner? Where’s Cam?”

“She went to get some evaporated milk. We’re out. Did you make something with it?”

“I don’t even know what evaporated milk is, Cole. Wouldn’t it be gone by default? I did use the last of the cinnamon, though.”

Cole turned an astonished look on her. Margrit shrugged. “Cinnamon toast. What, you think I was making cinnamon cheesecake or something?”

“No, but now that you mention it, that sounds like a great idea. Why don’t you?”

Margrit gaped at him in horror. Cole laughed. “Someday you’re going to have to explain your great fear of cooking to me, Grit.”

She climbed onto the counter, ignoring his scowl as she locked her elbows and leaned. “You really want to know?”

“The curiosity is killing me.”

“The truth is that I’m a pretty good cook, but if I admit that, you’ll stop cooking for me.”

Cole cast her such a dubious look that she laughed aloud. “I’m serious. I’m hideously lazy and I work too much, so left to my own devices I just fry eggs and make toast. If I let on I can do more, you might start expecting me to pull my weight.”

“What are you going to do when Cam and I get married?”

“Go on dates naked,” Margrit said promptly, then arched her eyebrows. “I don’t know. Move in as your live-in maid?”

“I’ve seen your bedroom, Grit. It doesn’t make a convincing argument for your housecleaning skills.”

“I guess I’m going to have to find a boyfriend who can cook, then.” Margrit grinned.

“Speaking of which, what’s the story with Tony? He’s Italian. Don’t good Italian boys learn how to cook at about the same time they start breathing?”

Margrit felt her grin slide into uncertainty as she stared at her feet. Three years of dating, and Tony’s image slipped away from her when they’d been apart for a few weeks. A handful of days, and Alban’s wouldn’t leave her. She felt as if her mind had been cross-wired, bringing up the wrong intensities for each man. “So I hear. What’s for dinner?”

Cole gave her a searching look, then turned back to his preparations. “Chicken in cream sauce. That’s why I needed the evaporated milk. You avoided the question, Grit. What’s up with you two?”

She studied her toes. “I guess we’re going to really try to make it work,” she answered quietly. “We talked about it at dinner last night. We’re going to try to work through things instead of shrugging it off when circumstances get a little rough.” Which was part of why she’d told Alban no, Margrit reminded herself fiercely. She was making a commitment to something real, not a fantasy. Involving herself in Alban’s world would only create a wall between herself and Tony that might never be breached.

If that wall hadn’t already been built.

“Congratulations.” Cole glanced at her again, and modified his tone. “Congratulations?”

“Yeah.” Margrit put doubts away and looked up with a smile. “We’ve just got a lot of talking to do, and these murders are his case, so things are still pretty shaky. Shouldn’t you be using cream for the chicken in cream sauce?”

Cole turned and leveled a wooden spoon at her. “Speak not of that which you do not understand, young Jedi.”

Margrit laughed. “Yes, Master.” The door swung open and Cam strode in, a paper bag of groceries tucked in the crook of her elbow. “Hey, Cam.”

“Hey, Grit.” Cameron slung the sack onto the counter and Cole rooted through it, coming out with the evaporated milk and a bag of carrots, which he looked at quizzically. Cam shrugged. “I like carrots. I thought you could steam some to go with the chicken. You feeling better, Grit?”

“Much, thanks.”

“Carrots? With my chicken in cream sauce?”

“They’ll be pretty!”

Margrit laughed. “Look, I’ve got some work to do. I’m going to let you two fight over whether there’ll be carrots with dinner or not. Is there anything I can do first, Cole?”

He looked around the kitchen. “No,” he said thoughtfully. “No, I think I can handle it by myself, or with Cameron’s capable help. It’ll be a strain,” he added. “Getting it all done without you, I mean. Which is to say, I don’t know how I’ll get through it without you standing here asking me what a strainer is for.”

“I know what a strainer is for.” Margrit stuck her chin out. “It’s for getting rid of the pulp in lemonade. Ick.”

“Ick,” Cam repeated. “That’s one of those professional lawyer terms. I thought you had the day off, Margrit.”

She looked guiltily toward the pile of papers on the dining room table. “Day off is relative.”

“Speaking of relatives.” Cole eyed her sternly. “Your mother called twice while you were out.”

Margrit slid off the counter, wrinkling her nose. “Okay. Call me for dinner. It’s the only way I’ll get off the phone with her.” She pulled the phone from the kitchen wall and stepped out onto the balcony, then went back inside for a coat and two blankets before calling home. Nestled beneath them in a corner of the tiny balcony, she watched the sky, waiting for her mother to pick up, and found herself smiling at her worried “Margrit?”

“Hi, Mom. I’m good. Don’t worry, okay? I’m sorry I didn’t call earlier,” she added hastily. “I slept most of the day.”

“You’re sure you’re all right? Daddy could look at you-”

“I’m fine, Mom,” Margrit repeated. “I don’t need Daddy to check my head. He’d only say I was addled, anyway.” It was his eternal diagnosis of his daughter’s state of being, spoken in a deep solemn baritone that did nothing to hide the spark of humor in his brown eyes. “He’d be right for once, too,” she added with a laugh. “Honestly, I’m fine.”